Jacobo Arbenz Guzman

Jacobo Arbenz Guzman (14 September 1913-27 January 1971) was the President of Guatemala from 15 March 1951 to 27 June 1954, succeeding Juan Jose Arevalo and preceding Carlos Enrique Diaz de Leon. Arbenz was a popular socialist leader who was democratically elected in 1951, but he was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup in 1954.

Biography
Jacobo Arbenz Guzman was born on 14 September 1913 in Quetzaltenago, Guatemala to a father of Swiss descent and a mother of Spanish descent. In 1935, he graduated with honors from a military academy, and he was forced to escort chain gangs while an officer in Jorge Ubico's Guatemalan Army. Arbenz was radicalized by his experience in the army, as he was angry at Ubico's suppression of protests by agrarian workers and his discrimination against the indigenous population. In 1944, a student uprising forced Ubico from power, with Arbenz being one of the leaders of the popular Guatemalan Revolution. Arbenz served as Minister of Defense under Juan Jose Arevalo, and he put down a coup by Francisco Javier Arana in 1949. Arbenz was elected President of Guatemala on 15 March 1951 when Arevalo decided not to contest, and he aligned Guatemala towards the Soviet Union due to his socialist policies and his leftist sympathies. He gave an expanded right to vote, allowed public debate, allowed for political parties to exist freely, and ended debt peonage by giving good land to poor peasants. His popularity as a socialist ruler threatened the United States in Central America, as they could not afford to have a leftist nation in its backyard. In 1954, John Foster Dulles masterminded a CIA coup against Guzman, who went into exile in Mexico. He died in Mexico City in 1971 at the age of 57 from alcoholism after his family fell apart, with his daughter Arabella killing herself in 1965.